A/N; To clarify, this character is not me; she is just that, a character invented to portray something, in this case several things. I don't want people to read this and think I'm just trying to share the angstiness of my life, as that is not the case. Also, this character is just named Dragon right now, if you have a better idea, feel free to leave a suggestion. Er... On to the story.

Once upon a time there was a little girl, too young to even remember this when she was older. Three or four maybe. She had a big, happy family with tons of brothers and sisters. Everyone loved each other so much and life was good. She didn't realize that daddy beat her big brother and maybe he yelled a lot. She didn't know the things that went on when no one was looking.

Three years later and the little girl had decided that she'd rather be a boy. Boys are big and strong and tough. Girls are stupid and weak and inferior. She's ashamed of being such a stupid thing as a girl. So the little girl decides that she's going to prove her brothers wrong. She'll be tough and she'll be strong. She'll outrun them and outfight them and outsmart them. Maybe then daddy will love her.

A few more years pass and she's done it. She's tougher and meaner than any girl her age. She runs like the wind and looks down at the world from the highest treetops she can find. Her brother is still stronger than she is, though she beats him sometimes and, just as often, he beats her. Her little sister is silly and fluffy and wrapped up in pink ribbons and dresses and bows just like she's not allowed to be. She won't let herself.

She decides that she'd hate them even if she had them. She doesn't want to wear those stupid girl clothes or pretend she's some kind of princess. She's not the princess or the knight; she's the dragon. She likes to get into fights in her raggedy hand-me-down jeans all covered in dirt. She learns to like the feeling of pounded arms and legs, heart hammering in her chest, the windup before the fight and the sting of forming bruises. She wears her scrapes and scars like a badge of honor with her head held high and her heart all alone. She's as free as she is when she runs like the wind, legs hammering the ground, muscles screaming in pain and pleasure, and the air in her hair feels like iced fire shredding the sky.

She's started to see the things that she didn't before, the screaming matches in the dead of the night and the flights out of her window on those nights to hide in the places that she'd picked out. It doesn't seem so bad to her, though. Don't most families fight? Don't most people run away from their daddies in fear when they break things or make a mess? Their family is perfectly normal, she knows. She doesn't know that most people own clothes don't have holes in them and eat food that they didn't get from a food shelf.

Only two years this time and things have changed again. The girl is still tough, and she still hates dresses and frilly girly things. She still fights with her brother and she still plays in the dirt, but she's started to wonder why she even bothers. Her daddy won't love her if she's a normal girl, but she's starting to think her doesn't love her anyway. She knows now that her family isn't normal and she can see what's going on, but she's too scared and too angry to try to change it.

So she finds a nice safe place, full of castles and dragons and wild adventure where no one can hurt her any more. It doesn't matter that it's not a real place, because she's a child and the difference between real and pretend is that real is scary and painful and pretend is happy and safe. She pretends that she doesn't have a feisty little brother or and absent mother. She pretends her big sister is still here taking care of her and she pretends that daddy loves her. She hides in the safest place she knows and pretend that she doesn't know any better.

The girl is fifteen now and all the other girls are fawning over boys, but she's still no princess, so she just watches, confused and annoyed. Is she supposed to want boys and squeal over babies and eye dresses with ever-plunging necklines with envy? She and her brother don't fight anymore, more out or his kindness than her own, but she still feels tough as nails. She's starting to notice that she doesn't know how to deal with people. Since she's not big enough to punch most of them in the face, she just does what she's learned to do; pretend.

She pretends she doesn't care. She doesn't need friends, she can take care of herself. She doesn't need the dad who the state took away or the mother who comes home drunk in the middle of the night. She pretends that the girls who look at her and giggle conspiratorially with their gaggle of friends don't exist. She pretends away the barbs they throw at her and the glares and the cruel jokes and the nasty names. She doesn't care, because she's still just a dragon all alone in her castle and these tiny little humans can't touch her in her stone fortress with its flaming moat. But the halls echo their taunts.

People start to ask pointed questions about why she doesn't like boys. She scoffs at them. The very idea of being with a girl disgusts her even more than the thought of being with a boy. She still can't help but be a little shocked the first time someone really says it though. She's annoyed and confused and humans just don't seem to understand. Sadly, though they always look like they know, the cats still won't answer when she asks them how she should feel.

It doesn't take her long to figure out though, she's not a lesbian; she's a dragon. Dragons don't fall in love with humans. Dragons just sit in castles with piles of make-believe treasures and wait to get slain. So that's what she does.

Three years fly by on the wings of scaly beasts and things are different again. The girl still doesn't fawn over boys, or girls either. She's never been kissed and she still doesn't want to be. She never talks to strangers, or even her meager friends, unless they speak first. She avoids people in general, wandering the hallways of life with her nose in a different book each day; it discourages strangers from addressing her.

She scans every room she enters for all possible escape routes and she has perfected the art absorbing information without paying attention. She's untouchable in her daydreams so the girl never leaves them anymore, not unless she somewhere safe and familiar. She lives with her big sister now, so when she goes home she opens her eyes for the first time all day and pretends she's fine when she's asked. She drifts through her life, unseen and unseeing.

She's gotten used to the questions and it no longer really hurts when people call her 'him' or 'sir' because she still wears boy's cloths, often too big for her. She doesn't care anymore if people won't take the time to look at her face instead of her chest to figure it out. She can't help but be amused at the faces they make when they ask her name and she tells the truth; the faces that say 'but isn't that a girl's name'? But somewhere deep inside her chest, she feels the sting of their carelessness, so she does what she's been doing for so long that it just feels natural; she pretends.

The girl imagines she's somewhere far away. She imagines what it'd be like if she could wear girl's clothes, not girly ones, just clothes meant for girls. She wonders what it would be like to feel pretty instead of exposed. She sighs and moves on, back to her castle of stone and her pile of shiny, precious figments of things, but now, against her will there's a little wooden chest in the corner filled with pretty things she'll never be able to bring herself to wear.

The earth dances around the sun one last time and things have changed once more. The girl has decided that she's not going to be a scared little girl hiding behind a bad attitude anymore. She's going to be strong. She might not be able to outrun or outfight or outsmart the world, but she'll outlive, outlaugh and outlove the blighters.

Yes, outlove. She's still not after romance, she doesn't need it. That's not the kind of love she'll use. She knows a little girl, her sister's daughter, all wrapped up in pink ribbons and bows and frills who's taught her a lot about love. She'll have to return that favor someday, tenfold.

Yes, the girl has come to know who she is, accept who she is. For the first time in her life the girl has learned to love herself, with the help of a two-year-old girl with a crooked smile. She knows who she is. She's a girl. She's a woman in black with an unruly grin. Her hair is a mane and her eyes are dark. She's a creature of the night, indelicate and untame. She's the dragon.